Make or break for the EU? Europeans vote in June with far right on the rise

Ever more of the continent’s 400 million voters feel the bloc is important enough to warrant casting their ballot

They are elections whose purpose many do not see, for an institution whose role few fully understand; an international ballot still viewed primarily in national terms, by voters who see it chiefly as a low-risk way to vent national frustrations.

“They’re not really about the EU and they don’t really matter” was long the popular take on elections to the European parliament, whose latest edition, from 6 to 9 June, will once more fill the 705 seats of the only directly elected EU body.